October 2007

October 31, 2007

The Public Interest Law Institute (PILI) is seeking to
fill the new position of Country Director, China. Leading candidates will be
lawyers with demonstrated expertise and interest in legal reform and public
interest law in China, as well as strong project management skills.

PILI has two major objectives in China: 1) to promote the
provision of pro bono legal services to public interest organizations by
developing a clearinghouse to match them with law firms; and 2) to encourage
strategic litigation and other advocacy tools for advancing the rights of
women, migrants and other vulnerable populations. For more information on
PILI’s work, see their website at www.pili.org.

On October 28, 2007, the standing committee of the
National People’s Congress amended the Law on Lawyers, according to a Xinhua
article of the same date. The law marginally changes the rules
governing the legal profession in China. It also introduces additional protections
of unclear practical importance for lawyers representing their clients.

October 24, 2007

A Beijing intermediate court overturned a lower court decision and applied urban standards
to calculate the death compensation award for a migrant killed in a traffic
accident, according to an October 24, 2007 article carried on the People’s Net
website.

Families of long-term migrants living in Chinese urban
areas, but who still have rural hukou (household registration) status, often
receive significantly less compensation than families of corresponding urban hukou holders
killed in similar (or the same) accident. The legal basis for this discriminatory treatment lies in a 2003 judicial
interpretation by the Supreme People's Court, but it reflects a deeper set of
institutional biases that link a range of legal rights and public benefits to
individuals' hukou identification rather than their actual place of
residence. [For more information, see
the topic
paper of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China regarding
the Chinese hukou system.]

The Beijing decision is an example of at least one court's willingness to flexibly apply relevant legal standards in practice, depart from a bright-line test based on hukou
identification, and use higher urban compensation standards to ensure equitable death compensation awards for the families of long-term migrants
living in urban areas.

October 23, 2007

The China Elections and Governance website has reposted a nice
article written by Zhao Shukai, researcher at the Development Research
Center of the State
Council, titled "A Quarter-Century of Peasant Petitions." The article summarizes his experiences dealing
with citizen petitions.

Two points caught my eye. First, Zhao notes that in the 1980s, collective petitions of large
groups of petitioners or extreme behavior on the part of petitioners was
relatively unknown, but this began to shift in the 1990s, as Chinese petitioners
began to adopt much more organized and radicalized tactics to draw official
attention to their complaints.

Second, Zhao proposes that institutional reform is necessary
to address the root problems associated with citizen petitions. Specifically, he proposes concentrating
authority for responding to citizen petitions in local people’s congresses, and
making their oversight of governmental affairs meaningful.

Both of these points have been made as well by other Chinese
and foreign scholars working on citizen petitioning in China. (See, for example, this article, this article,
and this conference).
But it always bears repeating, particularly by scholars as knowledgeable as
Zhao.

October 20, 2007

The China Law Center at Yale Law School is seeking applicants for an open position of Administrative Coordinator in the Center’s New Haven office. This position requires performing a wide range of administrative and fiscal responsibilities at The China Law Center, including organizing administrative support for projects, multi-day workshops and conferences in China, managing activities related to visiting Chinese and other scholars and students, and providing research on a variety of topics. The Administrative Coordinator also assists with the administration of the Center’s complex fiscal arrangements.

October 19, 2007

President Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese
Communist Party, called for "progressively" equalizing standards for
representation of the rural and urban population in China’s legislative organs,
local people's congresses (LPC), in his work report to the 17th Party Congress
on October 15. If implemented, this measure would represent a step
toward addressing one source of institutional discrimination against Chinese rural residents.

Under the PRC Election Law of the National People’s Congress and
Local People’s Congresses, rural LPC deputies represent four times as many
constituents as their urban counterparts. This increases the relative weight of urban interests in Chinese
legislative bodies, but leaves migrant and rural interests underrepresented.

October 10, 2007

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China is currently soliciting resumes for spring internships (paid) in
Washington , D.C. ,
working on Chinese human rights and rule of law issues. Interns must be
U.S. citizens.

Applications for spring internships must
be received by November 1, 2007. Further details are available below and on the Commission’s Web site at www.cecc.gov.

Interested applicants should send a cover
letter and resume to the CECC via e-mail to Judy.wright@mail.house.gov or via
fax at (202) 226-3804, attention: Judy Wright, Director of
Administration.